Research and Technology Commercialization

The farmers of Bangladesh are expressing an increasing call for mechanization in cultivation due to increased cost of labor and the need to improve productivity and product quality. Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) has developed several prototypes of agricultural machinery which are tailor made to cater the local condition. There is also an existing base of engineering workshops, manufacturers, machinery sellers and mechanics that can enter the value chain of agricultural machineries. However, there remain several systemic constraints impeding the flow of modern technology – machinery and equipment – from the researchers through commercial networks to the end users/farmers. Firstly, the level of connectivity between research organizations and the private sector firms remain limited without any effective feedback loops. As a result, research is typically conducted in isolation based on academic interests, as opposed to the needs of the several of the market actors that form the end market for agricultural equipment. Secondly, the manufacturing and distribution networks lack the capacity to effectively market and brand their technology that limits their ability to develop and communicate compelling arguments to services providers and farmers that could benefit from modern agricultural equipment.
Therefore, AVC is catalyzing emergence of customer oriented distribution networks for good quality agro-machinery as well as fostering agro-services market using agro-equipment through various commercially oriented organizations. AVC is also putting substantial effort to improve connectivity and cooperation between research/academia, private sector, and end customers – focusing on creating robust and multi-layered feedback mechanisms.

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About us

The USAID Agricultural Value Chains (AVC) Project in Bangladesh is working to address many agricultural challenges by improving Bangladesh’s economic stability through enhanced food security in the impoverished Southern Delta region. The five-year $34.2 million project is a part of US Government’s Feed the Future Initiative to end hunger in the world’s most food-insecure regions.
The AVC project is applying a market systems approach to targeted agricultural value chains to increase rural incomes, support rural employment, and expand export sales. The project has identified eight major agricultural crops with the potential for value added processing and new end users. The food value chains include potatoes, tomatoes, mangos, groundnuts, pulses like lentils and mungbeans and summer vegetable basket that include bitter gourd, eggplant, cucumber, sweet gourd and pointed gourd. Non-food products include flowers and natural fibers like jute and coir.